Suit brought on by affair is dismissed

PITTSBURG

A high school administrator in Pittsburg may have acted immorally in having an affair with his secretary, but he did not violate her children's rights by telling them about the sexual relationship at a meeting in his office, a state appeals court has ruled.

The ruling by the First District Court of Appeal on Thursday upholds a Contra Costa County judge's decision to dismiss a suit against the administrator, Ronald Polk, and the Pittsburg Unified School District. The appellate court concluded that Polk had no legal obligation to protect the children from emotional distress by remaining silent.

According to court documents, the sexual relationship between Polk, then a vice principal at Pittsburg High School, and his secretary, Jeanette Barnes, began in January or February 2007. Barnes said she telephoned Polk in August 2007, told him she wanted to end the affair and said she would report him to the school district. She said he threatened to kill her and her family, an allegation he has denied.

Later that day, two of Barnes' four children, her 16-year-old son, a student at the school, and her 19-year-old daughter, went to the school and saw Polk. He called them into his office and told them he had been having sex with their mother, the court said.

The son burst into tears, and all four children were so distraught that they needed therapy, the suit said. Barnes' husband reacted angrily, but the family has stayed together, said their attorney, Marc TerBeek.

The family sued, accusing Polk of intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress. TerBeek said Barnes was fired from her job but did not sue over her dismissal.

Polk transferred to another school. He has since left the district, said Superintendent Linda Rondeau.

In dismissing the suit, the appellate court said Polk may have had a legal duty to "supervise and protect" his secretary's son. But "the law imposed no duty on Polk to refrain from revealing the sexual relationship to (the son) under the circumstances," said Justice James Humes in the 3-0 ruling.

The affair "may have been immoral, as Polk admitted," Humes said, "but it is unclear how much moral blame can be attached to telling (the son) about the relationship when its secrecy was quickly unraveling."

Humes also said the disclosure did not constitute intentional infliction of emotional distress, because that requires proof of "extreme and outrageous conduct."

It is not "extreme and outrageous for a person truthfully to reveal a sexual relationship to the teenage children of his married sexual partner," Humes said.

TerBeek said the ruling allows a school administrator, after an affair with a "vulnerable person," to "bring these people into his office ... and devastate their lives."

A lawyer for Polk and the district was unavailable for comment.

Still pending in court, and unaffected by the ruling, is Barnes' claim that Polk sexually harassed her. He denied it, and also denied her allegation that he had coerced her, saying the affair was consensual.